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Indian cinema veteran Anupam Kher‘s latest directorial effort, “Tanvi the Great,” offers a groundbreaking portrayal of autism as a superpower rather than a disability. The film screens in the Cannes Film Festival‘s Marché du Film.
“Tanvi the Great” follows 21-year-old Tanvi Raina, a woman with autism who discovers her late Indian Army officer father’s unfulfilled dream — to stand at Siachen, the world’s highest battlefield, and salute the Indian flag. Despite societal pushback and institutional barriers against autistic recruits in the military, she becomes determined to fulfill this mission
“In our film, there’s a line, ‘Opposite of normal is not abnormal. Opposite of normal is extraordinary,'” Kher says. “Tanvi can be compared to Superman, Batman, and realistically, she’s funny, she’s bright, she teases people, and she is hilarious.”
Kher’s approach represents a departure from how autism has traditionally been portrayed in Indian cinema, which has often relied on stereotypes and caricatures. “I genuinely believe autism is a superpower,” Kher explains. “Bill Gates is autistic. Elon Musk is autistic. There are lot of actors and actresses who are autistic. There was no way I was looking at autism as a disability.”
The inspiration for the film came from Kher’s 13-year-old autistic niece, also named Tanvi. During a family wedding in Delhi, Kher noticed her standing alone, gazing into the distance. When he asked what she was looking at, she replied simply: “I’m looking at my world.”
“She could not describe what was her world, and I could not understand what her world was. And that was the seed which made me think about her,” Kher says.
That seed was enough to inspire Kher to return to direction. “I was toying with various subjects. I used to sit down, and when I used to craft it, I used to feel that my heart is not there,” Kher says about his long absence from the director’s chair since his 2002 debut, “Om Jai Jagadish.” “It took me 22 years to find that story.”
For the pivotal role of Tanvi, Kher cast Shubhangi Dutt, a gold medalist from his acting school, Actor Prepares. During a masterclass exercise, he noticed Dutt was the only student whose face showed complete peace while others were expressive.
“She was the only person who had no expression. Somebody was frowning, somebody was smiling and she was very peaceful,” Kher recalls. “Somehow, somewhere, I felt Tanvi may be like this.”
To prepare for the role, Dutt spent 15 days with the real-life Tanvi, though Kher instructed her not to mimic Tanvi’s mannerisms. “You don’t have to mimic. You don’t have to do the gesture she’s doing,” Kher told her. “You just capture her soul and … the element of purity that she brings into everything that she does.”
Dutt, who had always dreamed of acting despite family resistance, says she learned that the most important aspect of autism is authenticity. “The one thing that I found common in everybody was that they have that purity. They are so true to themselves and to everything around them … there is no manipulation. They say things as it is,” Dutt says.
The production of “Tanvi the Great” encountered numerous challenges but also remarkable coincidences that Kher views as affirmations of the project’s special nature. Most striking was the story of how Japanese cinematographer Keiko Nakahara joined the project. After initially declining due to her pregnancy, Nakahara called Kher back months later. She revealed that she had just learned that her 3-month-old son was diagnosed with autism, when she received Kher’s calls about directing a film centered on an autistic protagonist.
“When I came home, there were three missed calls from you, and I called you up and you told me it’s about an autistic girl who is a superpower,” Nakahara told Kher. “So I said, ‘I want to do this film, because this is how I’m going to bring my boy up.’”
Financing production proved another hurdle. When a committed backer pulled out one month before shooting, Kher refused to postpone. “If this film is not made on this schedule, it will never be made,” he insisted, eventually securing funding from friends, non-resident Indians and the National Film Development Corp. of India.
The film features an ensemble cast that includes Kher as Col. Pratap Raina (Tanvi’s grandfather), Pallavi Joshi as Vidya Raina (Tanvi’s mother), Boman Irani as a music teacher, Arvind Swamy as Tanvi’s military trainer, Jackie Shroff as a commandant and “Game of Thrones” star Iain Glen in a significant role.
Dutt describes working with these established performers as being “a cub surrounded by lions.”
Behind the camera, the film boasts Oscar-winning composer M.M. Keeravani (“RRR”) and sound design by Oscar-winner Resul Pookutty (“Slumdog Millionaire”).
The film is being positioned as “an international film made in Hindi” rather than a typical Bollywood production. “I grew up in films of a happy era,” Kher says. “We have gotten into a situation of cinema where we think goodness is boring; according to me, goodness is very cool and very good.”
“Tanvi the Great” is produced by Anupam Kher Studio in association with India’s National Film Development Corp. A companion book about the making of the film, titled “Different but No Less,” is expected to be released in early June, ahead of the film’s premiere.
When asked what they hope audiences take away from the film, Dutt says, “Never stop believing in goodness.”
“My life journey is the sum total of my belief in optimism,” Kher says. “I came to the city with 37 rupees [then $4.25] in my pocket on the third of June 1981. I believe in cinema of optimism. I believe in cinema of goodness. I believe in goodness. And I wanted to make a film about a girl who knows nothing else but goodness.”
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